


Silence / Peace

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, except it's less fix-it and more like "pretend the bad stuff didn't happen"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22116778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There is a difference between silence and peace.Rey knows this to be true.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57
Collections: Anonymous





	Silence / Peace

There is a difference between silence and peace.

Standing amidst the bustling marketplace of Naboo, buffeted on all sides by noise and motion and the great beating pulse of a city alive, Rey knows this to be true.

It is loud, and she cannot move a foot in either direction without offering apologies for goods and people bumped into, but there is a lightness in her heart all the same. This world, of overflowing market stalls and towering spires and friendly but harried faces, feels new and familiar to her all the same. Like something glimpsed in a dream. Except she knows, of course, that she has never been here before, never seen it. Never had an imagination that could even begin to conceive of such a place. Nor the circumstances in which she is visiting it.

She spots him up ahead, haggling with a flustered-looking vendor over the price of a sun-ripened fruit. It seems almost comically small in his hand, round and sweet and slightly too soft, but he is eager to buy it all the same. In bygone times, he could have simply taken it—taken the whole stalls-worth, if he wanted. Such was his power, physically and politically. Nobody would’ve argued with him, and if they did, they certainly wouldn’t for long. But that era is as dead as the persona he had once adopted, and today he is offering five credits.

The vendor does not seem pleased, but he relents, and absently she thinks that the time he spent haggling was probably worth more than the fruit itself. She’s still pondering this when the primary subject of her study turns, and when he sees her amidst the crowds—towering above them as he does—his face splits into a smile warmer than the sun bearing down on her back. He begins moving towards her, a determination in his stride, a self-perceived authority that has not yet been shaken, and the crowd parts before him easily. He pays them no mind at all, gaze and mind focused on only one thing.

It isn’t long before he reaches her, that little ripened fruit clutched to his chest like a hard-won prize, and he ducks down, bending at the waist to press a kiss to the top of her head. “Hi,” he breathes, pulling back to look at her.

“Ben,” she offers in return, quietly delighting in the way his eyes light up at the simple statement of it. “What _is_ that?”

He takes a moment to respond, so caught up in looking at her that she can practically see the wheels turning in his head as he processes her question. “Oh,” he finally manages, glancing down at the little fruit still clutched between his hands, “it’s a fruit.”

She snorts, amused, reaching forward to gently prise it from his fingers. “I grew up in a desert, not under a rock.” She punctuates the statement with a mischievous little smirk, and raises the squishy little thing to eye level, turning it this way and that, examining its every facet. It’s purple, and smooth, and entirely unremarkable, but she can feel the give of its flesh beneath her thumb, and she is careful not to press her fingers any deeper for fear they leave bruises.

Ben is still watching her, a studious gaze that never borders on lecherous, as though every movement she makes is a mystery to solve in and of itself. “It’s a gift. I got it for you,” he tells her, quietly and matter-of-factly. “I thought you might like it. They were always my favourite when I was— younger.” The final part of his sentence falls awkwardly, stilted and unsure, but she doesn’t question it, or the troubled little frown that passes briefly across his features. She just reaches up, cups her hand against his cheek, and chases away the remnants of it with a kiss.

“Thank you,” she murmurs against his lips, and the gratitude in the words is entirely heartfelt. Generosity was a concept new to her in the time she’d spent off of Jakku; the idea that someone would willingly give something of their own with no expectation of return was patently absurd amongst the unforgiving sands of her homeplanet. She had always been an oddity in that she partook in the behaviour herself, but she had never supposed that anyone else might too. The discovery that the galaxy was often much kinder than her youth had led her to believe was something she still struggled to comprehend, and she is suddenly aware in that moment that she does not possess the words necessary to express this to Ben. She simply cannot fathom a way in which the depth of her feeling could ever be wrapped up in any simple statement, but even as she thinks it, she feels him shift, his hands coming to rest on her waist.

“I know,” he tells her, simply. “Connected, remember?”

And then she stares, and smiles, and laughs. Their bond sings with the pure, sweet joy of it, and the relief of understanding, and she chases his statement with another kiss. No, she didn’t have the words to express it, but she had never really needed them. Not with him.

“Come on,” he tells her, a little breathlessly, loosening his grip on her waist to gently tug at her fingers, a silent request to take her hand. She lets him, tucking the fruit into her satchel, and trails after him as he leads her from the bazaar.

* * *

The planet’s single sun is already dipping below the horizon as they reach the edge of the waterway, stretching their shadows behind them and plunging the city into the warm darkness of dusk. It’s quieter here, and far enough off the beaten path that the only foot traffic are the city’s locals. They haven’t said a word to one another since escaping the suffocation of the marketplace, but the bond between them is thrumming with a quiet sort of energy, as though her direct acknowledgement had strengthened its emotional exchange.

The path they currently traverse is framed on both sides by trees, the bulk of their leaves broken apart by pinpricks of light peppered between; hanging lanterns, strung throughout their branches, giving the whole area an ethereal glow. She squeezes his hand as she casts her gaze about, and knows that if she were to glance up at him, his eyes would still be fixed firmly on her. The thought brings a warmth to her cheeks, and she’s grateful that the relative darkness hides it well. She isn’t embarrassed by his attention, nor made uncomfortable, but the depth of emotion in his eyes whenever he looks at her still threatens to overwhelm her in its enormity. For all the time she has known him, it has only been relatively recently that his gaze was anything but shuttered, inaccessible—and that was _without_ the cold metal barrier of his mask. She had gotten glimpses before, at the sheer scope of feeling that lay beneath, but it had never been long before she lost it again.

Now, he hides nothing. He feels as freely as she knows he has always desired, but she has never fully conceived the notion that so much of it could be for her. For someone whose life has been defined primarily by isolation, the sudden exposure to such an abundance of love feels as though she has been plunged into the depths, of a water she has never learned to tread. But for all that it is overwhelming, she is aware she has his company in that, too—the experience is as new to him as it is to her, and she does not feel half as fearful with the comfort of that knowledge.

They come to a stop beneath one of the little stone gazebos that line the canalside, and she lets go of his hand—though not without some reluctance—to bounce forward and lean out over the railing. The water laps against the stonework below, pulsing with some unknowable tide, and she holds still for a long moment, fascinated by the sight of it, and the glow of the city lights reflected in its surface. She does not so much as flinch as he moves to stand behind her, arms wrapping around her waist. She feels him bend down, breath tickling her ear, but he doesn’t speak, he just holds her, warm and strong and true, and some distant part of her quietly notes that even their breathing is in sync.

She takes it upon herself to finally part the easy silence that had descended around them, but when she speaks, her words are quiet and soft, like she’s afraid if she speaks too loud the moment might shatter. “Have you been here before?”

He takes a moment to answer. “Yes.”

“With—”

Before she can finish asking, he nods, stiffly. “With the First Order. But before that, too.” He pauses for a moment. “My grandmother was the queen.”

The way he says it is so casual it borders on flippant, but her eyes widen in surprise at the admission, twisting her head to the side to catch sight of his own. She had already known that he was royalty, heir of a planet lost, but this particular revelation is new to her. “You knew her?”

He shakes his head, gently. “No, she died long before I was ever born. Not even my mother got the chance to meet her. But we visited Naboo, from time to time. There’s a lot of history here.” He dips his head then, pressing kisses along her jaw, and she melts into the feel of it so completely that she almost misses his next words. “Yours, too.”

She shifts just enough that he gets the message, and he stops, lifting his eyes to meet hers. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask, because he already knows what she’s wondering, by virtue of their bond and the anxious way her teeth worry at her lower lip.

“This is the homeplanet of the Emperor,” he tells her, almost apologetically.

She nods, then clenches and unclenches her fists—the gifted fruit spared an untimely end only by its prior relocation to her satchel. There are a great number of thoughts vying for attention in her mind, and she takes a moment to compartmentalise, gently teasing apart the emotion until it is at least somewhat manageable. “My grandfather.”

“Yes,” he quietly affirms, loosening his grip on her just enough that she can twist round in his arms and face him.

She lays her hands on his chest, studies a loose thread of his shirt—black, an unsurprising colour choice, but one that no doubt suits him. “Do you believe it?” she asks, slowly and cautiously, as though she were on the edge of a precipice and fearful of what lay at the bottom.

“That’s what he told me.”

“No,” she says, hands suddenly balled into fists, the fabric of his shirt caught between. “Do you _believe_ it?”

He is quiet then, studying her face, the way her hands shift and shake with emotions long repressed, the glow of the city lights behind her throwing her silhouette into sharp relief. He takes so long to consider that she worries he will never answer at all, until he does, quiet and firm: “No.”

It feels, then, as if a weight has been lifted. She isn’t sure what weight, or where it’s been lifted from, but she feels herself relax all the same. “Okay,” she breathes. “Okay.”

He slides his hands up her back, one coming to rest at the base of her neck, gently kneading away the remaining tension. “Okay?”

She nods, swallows. “How could somewhere so beautiful—” she cuts off, choked by the thought of it.

“Produce something so cruel?” he murmurs, picking up where she left off. “Some might have said the same about Chandrila.”

She tilts her head at him, a question in her gaze, but he just smiles at her, and the self-mocking little tilt to it has her smacking her hand gently against his chest. “It’s not the same, you know it’s not.”

“There are a great many people who would beg to differ.”

“And you’re doing what you can to make it up to them,” she tells him, firmly.

He makes a non-committal noise in the back of his throat, glancing away and behind her, lost in thought. She knows what he’s thinking, would know it even if she couldn’t feel the flashes of hurt through the bond, and it is that which makes her reach up, tilting his chin down and forcing him to meet her gaze.

“It’s not the same,” she repeats, “ _you’re_ not the same.”

“Neither are you.”

Those three words catch her off guard, and she remembers; the hut, the fire, the touch upon which she had hung so many of her hopes. She knows he does not echo them to suggest that they are, in all ways, the same, but here lies a common thread between them: the fear of legacy, and its burdens, just as their loneliness connected them once before. She isn’t entirely sure what she believes about her origins—while the dark side promises truth, it is under no obligation to uphold that pledge—but if it would be the case that Palpatine’s blood runs in her veins, the fear that it might define her is present, and suffocating. Ben has lived a life in acute awareness of that, related as he is to good and evil alike; nobody else could ever understand those insecurities, nor could they allay them so simply.

She kisses him then, so sweet and slow, differently than before; this one lingers, exploratory, nipping gently at his lips and licking into his mouth when he parts them. He returns her enthusiasm, but matches her gentleness, the hand at the back of her neck still supporting her, the other spanning her lower back as he presses their bodies flush together. The way they push into each other isn’t sexual—though it could be, were they not acutely aware of the visibility of their current location—but is born of an eagerness that their physical forms could reflect their shared soul, unified and indistinguishable as their minds; an innate desire for the two to truly become one. It is not, of course, possible, but there is comfort in the nearness all the same, and a secret little thrill sparks along the bond with the knowledge that no-one else will ever know this completeness, this feeling of wholeness, of total synchronisation with another being. This is theirs, and theirs alone.

They kiss for such a length that when they part by necessity alone, their breaths are quick and shallow, and their cheeks are flushed, and it is only the awareness of oxygen’s necessity that keeps them from beginning again.

“Oh no,” she huffs quietly, the tone of her voice belying any possible alarm, “the fruit—”

He chuckles then, and removes his hand from her back to pat along her body until he finds the satchel, squished between her and the railing behind. He tugs it out from its prison, careful not to dislodge her overly much, and lifts it between them, staring at it appraisingly. “I don’t think it’s survived.”

She reaches to take the bag from him, sticking out her tongue when he feints at first, lifting it above her reach for a moment so as to keep it from her hands, but he quickly relents, and she flips it open. Sure enough, the poor little fruit is no more than pulp, and she makes a noise halfway between disgust and despair as she observes the damage to the rest of her belongings. Nothing permanently affected, but everything in dire need of a wash.

“I’ll buy you another one,” he chuckles, tipping his head forward to rest it against hers.

“What, the fruit or the bag?”

“Either. Both. Anything you want.”

She lets the satchel drop, forgotten. “Anything?”

“Mm, within reason.”

“Define reason.”

He laughs then, deep and warm and loud, and kisses her again, and again, and again.

There is a difference between silence and peace.

Standing in that little stone gazebo on Naboo, heart full of love and joy and listening to the sound of Ben’s laughter, Rey knows this to be true.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this all in one go and the word document was called naboobies.docx
> 
> oh, and [here are some naboo reference images](https://imgur.com/a/ZW84kpH)  
> i forgot to get one of the marketplace and i'm too lazy to reopen the game rn but c'est la vie


End file.
